Reviews with content warning for Classism - Leave the World Behind

Reviews tagging 'Classism'

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

16 reviews

frozenheartv's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3 stars
🌕🌕🌕

🧠 My thoughts

I’m very disappointed with this book. The premise was promising, the tension-building was done pretty well too, at least it kept me reading to see what was going to happen next. The prose was interesting to read because I haven’t seen this kind in many books but sometimes it could be dry and there were useless fancy words as well. However, it failed to deliver any meaningful details to me, it all fell flat at the end.

It felt to me that the book tried to be deep but couldn’t get there. Maybe there were too many things to talk about but nothing was resolved. The first half of the book felt a bit unrelated to the second half as well. The first half tried to dig into the problems related to racism, political issues, sexism, classism, and so on. However, the second half was more about the story itself, and how the situation developed.

I checked the movie right after reading the book and I thought the movie is far much better. At least, the movie explained why things in the book happened without the disturbing and unrelated sexual scenes.

For example, in the movie they mentioned that Amanda’s work was all about convincing people to buy stuff they didn’t need so that she could sell stuff. This made her become a terrible person as she was, she just hated people and her work. Moreover, the scene where Clay abandoned the Spanish-speaking woman when she was begging him to help her lead to the fact that Ruth didn’t trust white people and she told G.H. to be careful with these people because they might abandon them too if things happened. Even the ending when Rose found the Friends DVD and sat there to watch the series ending was more meaningful. She told Archie before that the world was sad anyway, if there was something happened to it, at least, she wanted to know what happened to Ross and Rachel because Friends made her happy and she was done waiting. That was so relatable and made me feel nostalgic, in the book it was not portrayed like this.

There were more things to talk about here but I think these details are enough to tell you that the movie makes more sense.

👍 What I like

Interesting premise
The prose when it’s bearable

👎 What I don't like

Weird and unrelated sexual scenes
Nothing is resolved, try to be deep but fail to do so
Falls flat and the end

Content Warnings

phantomgecko's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An interesting character study. I didn't like any of the characters. But their actions and thoughts were interesting to see.

Defos living lives that I cannot relate with.

idk, obvs the point of the book is the people and not what is happening to them, and their personalities are fleshed out and believable. I'd rather have read about what happened than these particular unlikeable character tho.

Content Warnings

ddclarke's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

A literary novel written to sound like a literary novel. Really love the concept and it was pulled off, but without anything that really stood out to me.

Likely hurt by having watched the movie first, which was very faithful and left me little to discover in the pages.

Content Warnings

lauracollins096's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Content Warnings

maggiemcfly's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

hail_archangel's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The best part of this book is the gorgeous cover art.

Content Warnings

ifoundcallie's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I feel like if you read this book as a literacy fiction novel with a lens towards social commentary in America, it is stunning. The layers and layers of metaphor on discomfort and humanity—so good! The author’s craft leads readers through a sociological exercise where they is forced to grapple with what it means to be part of the human race, particularly in the context of individualism in Western culture. The fact that the author took ALL OF THAT, and weaved it within the unraveling of a literal apocalypse (of which specifics are vastly unknown)….So. Damn. Good. I had chills multiple times and ran out of ink in my highlighter.

Very reminiscent of Stephen King, particularly “Under the Dome”. If you liked that, you’ll love this. For people SOLELY looking for a thriller or commentary on race/social class, turn elsewhere…this book intentionally subverts the expectations of those genres.

I love how the omniscient narrator stingily portioned out information, which shamefully left me feeling the same desperate NEED for information that the book was critiquing!

There are a few times in this book where the writing could use some trimming/adjusting towards purpose—the heavy emphasis on certain carnal images felt self-righteous and cheap for the rest of the story. Honestly, this is the only thing that keeps this book from being a “perfect” book for me. This pitfall is reminiscent of Stephen King’s writing, again, which makes sense knowing that the author reread Pet Semetary while editing this book. I can only read so many descriptions of bored and worn out married couples “tumbling into the only comfort: of flesh smacking against flesh” or teenage male characters and their detailed descriptions of “spit-in-hand, spurting release”, or adult men who are dumbstruck by their unexpected “large load of vitality and youth long gone”. I felt disappointed every time the book swung back to these tropes, faithfully. Yawn.

There are many passages/chapters in this novel that blew me away and can easily stand on their own as brilliant pieces of art. I would love to sit and analyze some of the turn-of-phrase, allusions, and imagery handpicked by this intelligent author. I was giddy with annotation, and this book rewards you for paying attention to these nuances of craft. Overall, I’m so glad I was recommended this book. It itched an “am I spiraling and paranoid or is the world ending” scratch that is often not done well.

Bravo, Rumaan Alam.

Content Warnings

mlewis's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Content Warnings

lukests's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

epeolatri's review against another edition

Go to review page

slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Okay, I can see what this book was trying to do. It’s rare to read books about the start of the end of the world, and for that it’s unique and interesting. The characters were terribly boring and so one-dimensional. I didn’t care even a bit about any of them. The use of the third person omniscient narrator had its purpose when it could give us small bits of information on what was happening in the world outside these two families, but other than that I feel like it did a disservice to the story. Had it been written in first person maybe the urgency of the situation and the terror the characters felt would’ve seemed more real to the reader. I was mostly annoyed at their choices and the way they only ever seemed to talk about what they should do but never actually did any of it. This book needed more action and less words.
On that note, the author really really likes his metaphors and similes. Without them this book could’ve been about 100 pages shorter. An entire two or three pages were just a list of what a woman bought at the grocery store. The author also seemed weirdly obsessed with sex. At least three times I was made to read through a paragraph of a character masturbating, one of which was a minor. There was a description of a thirteen year old in a bathing suit that made me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure why the characters genitals were deemed so important to the plot.
This book should have been a lot of things, but ended up just a weird, overly wordy mess that I barely managed to get through. Maybe the netflix movie will be better.

Content Warnings

More...